Snow Day
by MacsLady
Summary: A one-shot fic set in my Mac/Ella AU (that started with 'Second Chances'). When New York City is covered in snow, Ella persuades Mac to take a real 'snow day'. Just a fun little fic that involves Mac letting out his fun and mischievous side.


**Snow Day**

**Note: All the characters from CSI:NY belong to the writers of the show. Ella is my own creation.**

**I have included Jo's daughter in this fic. she is EllIE. EllA is my character (Mac's adopted daughter)**

**This fic is set in an AU. Ella is the daughter of an old Marine buddy of Mac's. She became an orphan when her dad was killed in a hit and run in my fic 'Second Chances'. Her parents had chosen Mac as both her godfather and her guardian in case of anything happening to both of them, so he adopted her. At the time of this fic, Ella is 11 years old. Everything else in this AU is the same as on the show, though. As for when this is set, it's sometime in s9, after Don and Jaime get together. **

'MAC! MAC, MAC, MAC, MAC, MAAAAAAC!' Ella squealed.

Mac jerked awake. He'd fallen asleep on the couch last night after watching a film that went on into the wee hours.

'MAC!' Ella yelled again.

'Whaaaaa?' he said, still somewhat fuzzy with sleep.

'Get up, get up, get up,' she said, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him up.

'Ella, what _is_ it? It's Saturday. Why are you awake at...8am on a Saturday?'

'It's SNOWING! Like, TONS! Get up and come see!'

Rubbing his eyes and shaking his head, Mac allowed himself to be pulled up and over to the window. He glanced outside, then did a double take. Outside, streets, cars, and buildings were covered in snow, and it was still falling.

'Wow,' he said.

'Isn't it cool?' Ella asked.

Mac looked down at her face. Her eyes were glowing happiness and she was grinning hugely. She'd been through a lot in the last year and a half, more than anyone should have to, so to see her so purely happy filled Mac with a pure happiness of his own.

'It's very cool,' he said.

'Did you get snow like this when you were a kid in Chicago?'

'Worse than this some years,' he said, smiling.

'Awesome. Can we go to Pilgrim Hill and sled? And have a snowball fight? And a game of snow-soccer? It's your weekend off, right?'

Mac nodded.

'It is, but maybe I should go in. With snow this bad, people might have trouble getting in, and someone should really be there...'

'Noooooooo! Mac, you _can't_! I want you to come out with me.'

'Wouldn't you rather hang out with Stacie?'

'Stacie's on vacation, and even if she wasn't, no, actually, I want to hang out with you. Please, Mac, you've been so busy with work lately, *and* you owe me for missing my soccer game last week. You _promised_ you'd make it up to me. Pleeeeeeassssse?'

Mac smiled. He was touched by Ella's statement that she wanted to spend time with him, and amused at how she'd easily and effectively knocked down his notion he should go to work and craftily employed both a guilt trip, flattery, and what he called her 'puppy dog face' to get what she wanted from him. And the notion of going into work had come purely from a rather reluctant sense of duty, which he sensed she'd also picked up on.

'You know, Ella, you're right. How about I call Jo and see if she wants to join us along with Ellie and Tyler, and I think Lucy is staying with them today too.'

'YESSSSSSS!' Ella yelled, 'That would be AWESOME!'

'Go and get dressed, then we'll have breakfast out at the diner you like before heading over to the park,' Mac said. He found himself infected by Ella's bouncy excitement, and increasingly looking forward to his day off.

While Ella got dressed, Mac called Jo.

'Jo Danville,' she said when she picked up.

'Hey, Jo, it's Mac. Are you going to work today?'

'No. It's going to be dead with the weather like this, no pun intended. Danny's there with Adam and a few techs and Sheldon. He said he can hold the place down and if he needs us, he'll call. '

'Right,' Mac said. 'Do you have both Ellie and Tyler with you?'

'Yep, and Lucy. Danny dropped her off this morning.'

'Ella and I are heading over to Central Park in a while to go sledding, do you want to meet up?'

'Sure, Mac, that would be great. About...10:30? It's going to be crazy crowded there.'

'Great,' Mac said.

'It's funny, I thought you might be calling me to ask me to watch Ella because you felt you had to go into the lab.' Jo said.

'Ella persuaded me to keep my day off,' Mac said, 'I swear, Jo, the girl's not even twelve yet and she knows how to wrap me round her little finger.'

Jo chuckled.

'She's a good influence on you, Mac. And the thing with her being able to wrap her round your little finger is incredibly cute. You're very cute when you're with her generally, actually.'

'I am not 'cute',' Mac groused, indignantly.

Jo laughed again.

'Oh, yes you are, especially when it comes to Ella. I'll see you later, Mac.'

He chuckled.

'See you later, Jo,' he said.

Mac sat opposite Ella at the table in their favourite diner and watched as she covered her scrambled eggs in Tabasco and ketchup. She then took a large gulp of her hot chocolate.

'What?' she said, seeing his smile.

'You have a chocolate mustache,' he said, handing her a napkin. As she wiped her mouth, he nodded at her eggs.

'You know, Claire always ate her eggs like that. Drowned in ketchup and Tabasco.'

'So did my dad,' Ella said, 'That's the best way to have them. I can't believe you're just having oatmeal and toast and a fried egg and coffee. That's soooooo boring.'

'At least mine looks like food and not some kind of...eggy crime scene.' Mac retorted as he sipped his coffee.

Ella stuck her tongue out at him, and then proceeded to dig into her eggs with gusto. Mac felt a by now familiar yet somehow still surprising rush of warmth and love rise in his chest. He loved Ella's unique little oddities and her very definite ideas of what she liked and what she didn't, and her complete lack of concern for what anyone might think of her. The past few weeks had been fairly busy with cases of one kind or another - either cases where people had been murdered, or committed suicide, or where the deaths were eventually attributed to the weather. Whatever the cause of death, it was depressing and wearying and generated a lot of paperwork. He hadn't had the chance to spend as much time with Ella as he wanted. With Christine out of town visiting family this week, had it not been for Ella, he would likely have battled through the snowdrifts and sub-zero temperatures to spend the day in a near-empty lab, catching up on dull emails and paperwork. He smiled to himself, suddenly immensely glad that he wouldn't have to deal with any of that today. He was actually going to have a real 'snow day'.

'You ready?' Ella asked Mac.

'Yep,' he said.

They were in a sled at the top of Pilgrim Hill, which was crowded with kids and parents. To their left, Tyler and Ellie Danville sat in their own sled.

'We're gonna beat you!' Ellie yelled.

'We'll just see about that, young lady,' Mac called back. He leaned into Ella's ear and whispered,

'We're gonna kick their ass.'

She grinned.

'I know.'

'Okay, guys, on the count of three,' Jo called from behind them, 'One...two...THREE!'

The next second Mac felt their sled begin to slide down the incline, helped by Don Flack's shove from behind he glanced back to see Jo, Don, and Jaime grinning at them from the top of the hill. After giving Tyler and Ellie the push-off, Jaime was standing next to Don, her grin every bit as wide as his.

Mac felt the exhilaration of the sled picking up speed, the cold snow blowing in his face. He'd let Ella 'drive' the sled, so he had very little control over anything, though he was ready to help her out if needed. He would usually be bothered by such a lack of control, but he allowed himself to relish in the pure thrill of the rush of cold and speed. Ella let out a whoop as they suddenly overtook the Danville kids, and Mac matched her, letting out a whoop of his own.

It was over almost before it started, and they were at the bottom of the hill. Ella turned to him. Her dark hair was peeping out from under the edges of her hat, and her green eyes were lit with pure glee.

'We won!' she said, pointing up the hill, where Tyler and Ellie were just coming down behind them.

'Of course we did, we have the best sledder in the city on our team,' Mac said, patting her shoulder, 'You beat a fifteen year old and and twenty-one-year-old. That's pretty awesome.'

Ella flushed, pleased.

'Can we go again?' she asked.

'Of course, but this time I want to race Don and Jaime,' Mac said, grinning at the thought of racing and beating Don Flack.

Ella grinned back.

'We're gonna beat them too, right?'

'Damn straight we are,' Mac said.

'Taylor, you are going *down*,' Don said, pointing a gloved finger at him from where he sat in the front of Tyler and Ellie's sled, with Jaime behind him her arms wrapped around his waist.

'Of course I'm going down,' Mac said, pointing down the hill, 'A lot faster than you. You've got no chance, Donny boy, right, Ella?'

'No chance at all,' Ella said, 'You're gonna get beaten by an 11 year old *girl*, Don.'

Once again, Jo counted them down, and then they were off. About halfway down the hill, Don swerved to avoid another sled with two kids in, and yanked so hard to the left that he tipped his and Jaime's sled into the snow, dumping them both in it. This gave Mac and Ella a clear advantage, and they won. They waited at the bottom of the hill as a Don and Jaime, looking like snow people, coasted down.

'Told you we'd beat you, Flack,' said Mac, grinning smugly at his cold and slightly pissed-off-looking friend.

Don scowled and reached down. He balled some snow in his hand and grinned at Mac.

'Don't you...' Mac began.

The snowball hit him in the center of his chest. Before he could reach down to form another one, snow exploded across Don's chest, and a second snowball glanced off his hat.

'Come _on, _Mac, hurry _ up_,' Ella said, firing another snowball at Don and dancing away from one Jaime aimed at her. 'I've got you covered, but I can't do this by myself,' Ella said.

Mac laughed, and began to make a snowball. He made three, and fired them at Don and Jaime, hitting Don twice and Jaime once. Soon, snowballs were flying through the air, and Jo and her kids had come down to join in. They ended up with Jo, Don, Jaime, and Tyler on one 'team' and Mac, Ella, and Ellie Danville on the other. The 'two Els' as they'd taken to calling themselves turned out to be very good at snowball fights, and despite their team being outnumbered. Ellie seemed to take great pleasure in throwing as many snowballs as possible, as hard as possible, at Tyler, who despite being older and bigger than his sister, took the same pleasure in throwing them back at her. By some unspoken agreement, Mac and Ella focused their ammunition on Don, who found himself suffering 'hits' much harder and more frequently than either Jo or Jaime.

'What's the meaning of this, Taylor?' he yelled as he ducked a snowball Mac threw at his head, 'I thought we were buds!'

'Yeah, but you're a Jets fan,' Mac said, 'And you stole my coffee last week.'

'REVENGE!' shouted Ella, 'Giants rule, Jets suck!' She and Mac pelted Don with yet more snowballs.

'This is _so_ unfair,' Don grumbled loudly, returning the attack as best he could, 'I'm getting my butt kicked by an old man and a kid,'

Mac and Ella glanced at each other.

'We're gonna get him for that right?' Ella said.

'Oh, yes,' Mac said.

'Hey, Don, look, there's a hot dog truck coming, the sign says 'giant hotdogs for only $1,' Ella said, pointing behind Don. Don turned around.

'Where?' he said, 'I can't see any...auuuuugh!'

He cried out as Ella barreled straight into him. She was much smaller than him, but she'd caught him off guard, and he went down into the snow. Ella began stuffing snow down the front of Don's jacket. Don tried to struggle free, but Mac had come over and was kneeling in the snow, pinning Don down by his shoulders.

'Aggggh, what the hell? Jaime, Jo, aren't you gonna stop this?'

'I don't think so,' Jo said, 'It's too funny,'

'Jaime, c'mom, sweetheart, you're my *girlfriend*' Don tried desperately.

Jaime thought about it, and then walked over and began helping Ella stuff more snow down Don's coat.

'Say 'mercy',' Ella demanded, 'Say it!'

'Oh, crap. Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!' Don yelled.

'Mac? You think he's had enough?' Ella asked, grinning at Mac mischievously.

Mac grinned back.

'Yeah, I think so. Let him up.'

They let Don up, and he scowled at everyone as he shook snow out of his coat. Taking pity on him, Mac brushed down the back of his jacket.

'All right, guys,' Jo called over, 'That mention of hot dogs made me hungry. Who's up for some lovely hot, greasy burgers and fries? I'll pay.'

'No, you won't,' Mac ordered, 'I'll pay.'

Jo grinned at him.

'If you insist,' she said.

The group began heading out of the park. As they walked, Ella slipped her gloved hand into Mac's and leaned into him.

'Today is the best day *ever*,' she said.

Mac grinned down at her, and nodded. He had to agree.

The End.

**Hope you enjoyed this one guys, especially those of you who have read and sent such lovely reviews for my previous Mac/Ella fics. This one is especially for y'all.**


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